Mobile devices such as cellular telephones, PDAs, etc. are proliferating like never before. Almost everyone has some sort of mobile device, and some people have multiple devices. Users can access several different networks using a single mobile device, and can access voice, text, and multimedia data from other network entities such as servers and other mobile devices. Further, mobile device complexity is increasing, with more and more advanced and power efficient processors, display interfaces, and applications to provide a user experience like never before. Such devices include, for instance, the iPhone, iPad, Droid, and other PDAs/netbooks. Consequently, users are using their mobile devices more frequently, and have larger bandwidth requirements for data, email, voice, etc.
This increased usage puts an increased strain on the wireless networks that provides these services. Even with the advent of 3G and 4G networks that use Internet Protocol (IP) addressing, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), etc., there are certain network elements that get overwhelmed and can create a bottleneck for data flow, such as cellular base stations (or NodeBs) and their associated gateways. Several users within the range of one or more base stations who are downloading high-volume data from the network will have greater transmission power requirements from the base station. This may cause reduced signal strength per mobile device, and consequently a lower quality connection. Transmission power control can alleviate some but not all of these issues. This further causes higher battery usage on the mobile device itself.
Network operators generally offer alternative means to connect to their core networks, or to the Internet. Femtocells, Fiber-to-the-node, and wireless local area network (WLAN or Wi-Fi) access points can provide access to various networks for mobile devices having more than one type of transceiver. For instance, the iPhone includes a Wi-Fi transceiver. A Wi-Fi hotspot access point can be used to connect to a network, with broadband speeds, and the load on the cellular network can be reduced. However, there are specific issues that prevent the efficient selection of an access point. For instance, many users appear to disable Wi-Fi, for example, due to concerns over battery life. Consequently, users often do not enable Wi-Fi as they may forget to turn it off afterwards. Leaving Wi-Fi on can lead to faster battery drainage, while leaving it off can lead to connectivity issues as well as sub-optimal power usage as the cellular transceiver may have to use more power for high-throughput communication with a base station.
Conventional techniques for determining the availability of local wireless resources, e.g., Wi-Fi hotspots, etc., typically rely on scanning for those resources or accessing location-centric data maps of those resources. Scanning for local wireless resources can be energy intensive and can be associated with shortened periods of time between recharging cycles in battery operated user equipment (UE). Scanning generally is associated with a radio, adapted to operate at the frequencies of the local wireless resource, being in an ‘on’ or ‘active’ state. The active radio then listens for handshake signals from any available local wireless resources at the related frequencies. Where a handshake signal is detected, the UE can then follow predetermined procedures related to detecting the handshake, such as forming a communicative link with the detected local wireless resource. As a readily appreciated example, a smartphone can have a Wi-Fi radio left on such that, as the smartphone enters a detected region of Wi-Fi coverage, the smartphone can attempt to log into the Wi-Fi resource. It will also be appreciated that leaving the exemplary smartphone Wi-Fi radio on typically results in an increase in battery drain.
Location-centric techniques that access maps of local resources can be employed to selectively activate (or deactivate) energy intensive components based on the location of a UE. This can decrease the rate at which a UE battery would be discharged in comparison to leaving a radio on in a ‘scanning’ mode. As an example, a GPS-enabled phone can access a map of Wi-Fi hotspot locations. Where the phone is determined to be at a particular location correlating to a location on the map associated with a Wi-Fi resource, the phone can activate a Wi-Fi radio. Similarly, where the phone is determined to be at a particular location correlating to a location on the map not associated with a Wi-Fi resource, the phone can deactivate the Wi-Fi radio to conserve energy and prolong battery usage. While improving battery usage, location-centric techniques foreseeably rely on maps of local wireless resources and a location determination component to correlate the UE position to a location on the map. As such, map data would be compiled and then accessed by a UE to determine if a local wireless resource is available. Moreover, determining a location can require computational resources. Further, some UEs may not be equipped to determine a location for a location-centric determination of the availability of local wireless resources.
The above-described deficiencies of conventional mobile device location data sources for transportation analytics is merely intended to provide an overview of some of problems of current technology, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art, and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments described herein, may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.